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2024 was a year of success and good news, which ended with a couple of setbacks.
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In 2025 we will see more opening of the institutional world, with attempts at centralization.
A year of success
As this and other media have commented several times, 2024 was a pivotal year for the legitimacy of Bitcoin in regulated finance, and, therefore, for social acceptance in general. Let us remember that until 2023 the financial landscape was very hostile to Bitcoin in the US, with a government that almost openly hindered the interaction between the crypto economy and traditional finance in what was known as operation choke point 2.0.
2024 gave us what seemed like a 180° turn in these policies: first with the approval of Bitcoin investment funds; later with a presidential candidate who put the first cryptocurrency as the axis of his campaign. On top of that, 2024 was a year of halvingwhich historically has inaugurated an upward cycle starting 6 months after said event; something that happened this year as well, giving Bitcoin new all-time highs above one hundred thousand dollars.
All this generated a climate of general optimism among bitcoinersin which it seemed that the establishment was already in our favor.
A discouraged end of the year
In the last month of 2024, a series of news from the institutional sphere partially overthrew that optimistic sentiment. The first was that the director of the federal reserve said in an interview that the agency is not authorized to buy bitcoins, nor is it interested in changing that at the moment. Although this is not serious, nor is it even something unexpected, it was a splash of cold water for those who thought that Trump’s plan was around the corner.
Perhaps more relevant news was Microsoft’s refusal to begin a bitcoin acquisition strategy. This showed us that despite investment funds and the success of some bitcoin reserve strategies such as MicroStrategy, large technology corporations still remain skeptical about BTC.
But the one that I consider most relevant of all were El Salvador’s concessions towards the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is known, particularly by the most progressive sectors, as the face of the neoliberal order or American colonialism. This notion is shared by radical bitcoiners committed to human rights, such as Alex Gladstein in this note. The feeling is reciprocal, since the organization has attacked Bitcoin for almost forever.
The discouraging thing about what happened with the government of El Salvador is that it had turned to Bitcoin as a way to free itself from the financial dominance of the United States through the dollar and from dependence on this type of organization. But, needing a loan from the fund, he had to bow to its conditions, sacrificing part of that space of autonomy that he had managed to establish.
The challenges for 2025
The case of El Salvador shows us first-hand how the nocoiner establishment acts to maintain the hegemony of the dollar internationally, particularly in Latin America. Another case of this type, although more subtle, is Argentina, where the IMF made it a condition of its agreement with the country to discourage the use of cryptocurrencies.
Even if the Argentine government were a bitcoiner (which it is not), it would still have its hands tied by the organization, under penalty of defaulting on payments. That is why, continuing with the Argentine case, the so-called currency competition is confused with the dollarization plan. Expected (and encouraged) Let the US currency take center stage, before Bitcoin or any other.
Without wishing to enter the realm of conspiracy, a new establishment strategy to maintain control can be seen on the horizon, not just by rejecting Bitcoin, but by trying to monopolize it. A bit like I mentioned in a previous article, there is a corporate sector pushing for mass adoption of bitcoin, but only as a means of savings, leaving the dollar as a currency. Trump’s victory and his promise to create a strategic reserve of bitcoin for the US, perhaps partly inspired by Jason Lowery, perfects this plan, also putting the State into play.
Although he is not part of the new government or has much influence on it, Michael Saylor recently spoke of a plan by which The US monopolizes the Bitcoin network and turns the dollar into a global CBDC.
«So my strategy would be – and I really think it is an evil genius strategy; It’s so good that our enemies would hate us, but our allies would complain too. And the US would make $100 trillion in a heartbeat.
This is the strategy: You get rid of the gold, you demonetize the entire gold network. You buy bitcoin – 5 million or 6 million bitcoins – and monetize the Bitcoin network. All the capital in the world, sitting in Siberian real estate or Chinese natural gas or any other derivative that is held as a long-term store of value – Europeans, Africans, South Americans, Asians, they all simply dump their holdings. shit and their shitty capital assets and buy bitcoin. The price of bitcoin is going to the moon.
The US is the big beneficiary. American companies are the big beneficiaries. And while you do that, you normalize and support digital currency, and you simply define digital currency as the US dollar backed by US dollar equivalents at a regulated and audited US custodian. What happens next?
150 billion stablecoins becomes $1 trillion, $2 trillion, $4 trillion, probably $8-16 trillion, and you create $10-$20 trillion of demand for US sovereign debt.
While you’re taking away some demand because the bitcoin capital asset grows, you’re adding back demand to support the stablecoin. [El dólar digital estadounidense entonces] replaces the CNY, the ruble. Replaces all African currencies. Replaces all South American currencies. Replaces the euro.
If you truly believe in the US global reserve currency and US values, each and every currency in the world would actually merge with the US dollar if it were freely available. »
Michael Saylor – founder of MicroStrategy
While there is still no indication that something like this is underway, it is significant that the most important Bitcoin influencer of the moment is openly commenting on it, and that much of the space talk about your bitcoin interests and those of the United States as if they were the same thingso naturally.
To conclude, I believe that 2025 will be a bullish year and greater legitimacy for the first cryptocurrency. We must embrace that success and continue building it, each person from their place. And we must maintain firm the spirit of decentralization that characterizes the space. The institutionalization of Bitcoin is beneficial, but we should not make concessions and give them the network on a plate just for the promise of getting rich. Bitcoin is a new institutionality, a new social contract and therefore it is those organizations that must transform, those that eat from the hand of Bitcoin, and not the other way around.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to its author and do not necessarily reflect those of NoticiasVE. The author’s opinion is for informational purposes and under no circumstances constitutes an investment recommendation or financial advice.